Currently in the coal mining industry, two key methods are used to mine and recover coal reserves:                1) Strip mining are used to recover surface lignite/bituminous coal reserves which is effective only to depths of + or −300′ deep; and        2) Shaft mines are used to access deeper reserves and usually recover bituminous coals at depths up to + or −1500′ deep.        
Both of the methods are dangerous and under heavy Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scrutiny for environmental impacts. Strip mines cause a host of environmental issues. Strip mines produce lignite coal which is also called a “dirty coal”, although some strip mines do produce clean coal. The process is very damaging to the environment and requires massive reclamation work to replace the surface area damages.
People in the coal mining industry utilize draglines and shaft mines to recover coal. These people are not privy to actual abilities of oil and gas recovery drilling rigs and associated machinery or practices.
People in the oil and gas recovery industry only see small amounts of coal while drilling and deem it to be a waste product, that comes out of the wellbore in the cuttings. Even during the drilling of coal seams for coal bed methane, the coal is considered a waste product as the main objective is methane gas recovery. The excavated coal is never weighed, measured, or sold. It is destroyed as waste material.
The method of the present invention as presented provides many benefits over current coal mining methods:                Coal can be drilled in places that a dragline or shaft mine may not be accessible due to terrain/or climate.        Setting up a dragline takes years of prep and destroys thousands of acres of surface area, necessitating millions of dollars of environment repair. A drilling rig can mine up to 2600 acres from one 2-acre site that can be repaired by covering with grass seed and cause minimal damage to environment.        Lignite mines cost many millions of dollars and take years to set up, while a drilling rig can bring coal to surface within a week or so after rigging up, again without damaging the environment and drilling provides “clean coal”        The biggest benefit is due to the vast cost to strip mine and reclamation. Drilling coal is faster, cleaner and cheaper than strip mining. An estimate is that the coal produced from the present invention will provide 30% per ton cheaper than buying and shipping from Wyoming to Texas. An average savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars per day, essentially cutting energy fuel cost by 30% on production of electricity.        
In addition to these benefits, the method of the present invention circumvents the limitations of conventional mining and oil and gas recovery methods. Using modified oil and gas drilling tools, the method of the present invention allows mining for solid natural resources embedded in very deep formations underground. Whereas, conventional mining methods are limited to depths of 1500′ to 2100′, the method disclosed is capable of mining depths between 500′ to 12000′. Additionally, the solid natural resources are extracted through narrow holes dug exceptionally deep into the earth's crust. This limits the damage done to the environment and obviates the massive reclamation works needed to replace the displaced surface area.
Even though the method of the present invention utilizes relatively narrow wellbores, compared to the oil and gas industry, the wellbores are actually quite large. Whereas in the oil and gas industry, the wellbore is deliberately kept as narrow as possible, the present invention utilizes a reaming process to enlarge the wellbore and to extract the maximum amount of solid natural resources. Further, the number of wellbore in the oil and gas industry are deliberately kept to a minimum. Usually, oil and gas extraction processes attempt to utilize just a single wellbore. In contrast, the present invention utilizes a plurality of lateral holes that are radially distributed around the wellbore. Additionally, the plurality of lateral holes may be constructed at several vertical depths. This allows for extraction of the maximum amount of solid natural resources out of the formations.
Finally, the method of the present invention also permits an efficient waste disposal mechanism. More specifically, the plurality of lateral holes need to be plugged after the all of the solid natural resources are excavated. Thus, various types of waste materials, such as coal ash, carbon dioxide or solids from exhaust, municipal waste, medical waste, salt water, oil-base mud solids, and/or fracturing water, may be mixed into the plugging material. As a result, the method of the present invention allows of disposal of waste materials deep into the earth's crust which minimizes environmental impact.